Traditionally, fine wires of gold and aluminum are employed in wire bonding to make electrical interconnections between two or more electrodes on semiconductor devices. The most common wire interconnection made on a semiconductor is made between the conductive pad on a semiconductor chip and a conductive terminal which is adjacent the chip and which serves as an output lead to the connector pins of the package in which the semiconductor chip is contained. One well-known device commonly used to make such connections is a wedge bonding tool. In wedge bonding an end of a fine wire supplied from a spool of wire is fed through a hole in the bonding tool. The end of the wire is then pressed against the bonding pad and scrubbed at a high frequency to create the bond by the transfer of molecules between the pad and the wire. The fine wire is then severed by tearing or breaking the fine wire at the second bond.
In instances where testing of integrated circuit chips is required, it is desirable to connect test leads or probes to select points on the chip's testcard substrate. As mentioned above, conventional wedge bonding tools connect a length of wire to a bond pad, but then must be cut or otherwise severed from the supply wire spool. This has several drawbacks including possible break of the bond at the testcard substrate, inconsistent wire lengths and increased time to complete the many connections necessary to adequately populate the chip with probes.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide an apparatus and method for attaching precut or singulated preformed probes to devices to facilitate testing.